


we're okay

by halfwheeze



Series: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2019 (Round 1) [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bed-sharing, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky goes by James, Clint just wants Bucky to stay, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gift Fic, M/M, Making Out, Mild Possessive Language, Mild Praise Kink, Praise Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-08 02:42:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20284774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfwheeze/pseuds/halfwheeze
Summary: clint has had a tail for about two days. he tells simone that the tail is his boyfriend. the winter soldier camps out in his house for the next three weeks.





	1. weary eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).

> chapter one fills:  
Clint Barton Bingo G1 - Winterhawk  
Bucky Barnes Bingo K4 - Hawkeye

Whistling as he goes, Clint makes his way from the roof to the stairs, riding banisters down the floor to get down to his apartment. He may as well let his shadow take the elevator when they’re going downstairs, being as Clint’s knees always insist they take the elevator when going up. He isn’t quite sure who’s tailing him, but he doesn’t think it’s dangerous; they’ve been following him for approximately two days. If they were gonna kill him, they damn well woulda done it already. He unlocks his apartment door and laughs as Lucky tackles him back into the hallway. 

“Hey, big guy. Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?” he asks, fluffing the mutt’s ears and pressing a kiss to his nose. Kate always makes fun of him when he does stuff like this, but he’s seen her do it too, so she’s just a hypocrite. Simone is laughing at him from her doorway, leaning against the jam, when he looks up. 

“You’re gonna blow your back out lettin’ that puppy jump all over you one day,” she says, her hip cocked where she has her hand placed on it. He laughs again. 

“Yeah, maybe. Where are the little ones?” he asks after them because he’s an okay person, but also because he genuinely likes his tenants, even the littlest ones. Simone shrugs at him. 

“My sister has ‘em for the night. Who’s the guy who keeps followin’ you in and outta your place? Seems like your type, but I never get to ask him,” Simone hedges, feigning a lack of interest because she likely thinks it’ll make him more honest. Clint was gonna lie either way, but it’s cute that she thinks she can manipulate him when he’s been working with the Widow for the better part of a decade. 

“Honey!” he yells over his shoulder in the approximate position he thinks his tail is in; this is as good a time as any to confront them. A shadow separates from the collection of them at the end of the hallway with an air of reluctance, hands shoved in pockets as the shadow becomes more of a person. The Winter Soldier is standing on Clint’s hallway, in his building, just down the hall from one of the closest civilian friends he’s ever had. And, he’s not going to do a single thing. He knows that Steve has tried to bring the guy in a couple of times, but according to record, Barnes hasn’t killed any civilians since he broke from HYDRA. 

“Hi,” Barnes says, dipping his head in Simone’s direction before holding out a hand, “I’m James.” A little bit of the good old Brooklyn boy slips into his voice, something that sounds darker and rougher than Steve’s, but charming all the same. It’s interesting that he’s going by  _ James  _ now, and Clint files it away to ask about later, not in front of a third party witness who they’re both lying to. He doesn’t want to encourage the wrong idea of honesty when Barnes is just talking to  _ him.  _ Simone raises an unimpressed eyebrow before shaking the hand held out to her. 

“You’re treatin’ my boy right, aren’t you? Never hurt him?” Simone asks, her eyes narrowed. Clint can see James swallow, which is kinda hilariously, before nodding with a kind of vigor that nearly makes Clint wheeze. It occurs to him that he’s still ass on the floor, cradling a dog between his knees with his living room door open. 

“Don’t interrogate him now, S, I gotta get inside and feed Lucky,” Clint says, gesturing to Lucky as he stands, using the door jam to pull himself up. He’s not even thirty yet, but he’s not getting any younger. 

“It was nice to meet you!” James stumbles out before Clint herds him out of the hallway, crowding the Winter fucking Soldier in a way that should honestly make him nervous, but it just doesn’t. As soon as the door is closed, Clint gets out of his space and actually moves to feed Lucky; Kate had something to do this afternoon, so the good boy hasn’t been fed since this morning. He would have come here first, before going to the roof, but there was some recon for the tracksuits that needed to be handled. 

“We gonna talk about why you’re followin’ me?” Clint asks, pouring food into the metal bowl he uses for Lucky before picking up the water bowl to give him new water from the tap. He’s a good enough dog owner to change Lucky’s water every day and fill it whenever it looks low, but he’s not a bottled water dog owner. 

“Can it wait?” James asks, his voice smaller than Clint would have ever expected, and Clint weighs it. Now that they’re actually admitting that James is here, that James was following Clint at all, sure. It can wait. 

“Sure. You wanna sit down at the table? I’m makin’ spaghetti,” he says, tilting his head in the direction of the tiny kitchen table that Kate said he had to have for this to be a place where people live, not just somewhere he’s squatting. James nods and sits, smiling tightly when Lucky comes to kneel at his feet, begging with begging for pets. 

“Hi, Lucky,” James is saying, continuing to talk to the dog in a voice even lower than before, and Clint hides a smile by turning his back on the Winter Soldier. He just goes about making spaghetti instead of thinking about the Winter Soldier in his kitchen, the Winter Soldier petting his dog, the Winter Soldier about to eat his cooking. Time passes strangely quickly like that, objectively not thinking obvious thoughts and scrolling on his phone while the water is bowling. It’s not silent in the kitchen, not awkward or strange, but a relaxed kind of quiet that has the line of tension in Clint’s shoulders dissipating. 

“Osteoporosis,” Clint mutters when he sets a plate down in front of James, grabbing his own plate and sitting down. James wrinkles his brow, confusion plain on his face, but he doesn’t bother with asking. Clint doesn’t want to explain approximately five years of memes to get here anyway. 

“So, what do you want to know?” James asks, twirling spaghetti around his fork like it’s a science experiment for him to figure out, not like it’s food for him to eat. Clint takes a bite of spaghetti from James’s plate naturally, able to steal from the Winter Soldier supremely by element of surprise. It’s how he did this the first time with Nat too, and that was the first time she felt safe enough to eat food made by a near-stranger. 

“Tell me anything you want, just don’t lie,” Clint replies, a shrug of the shoulders tacked on for good measure. James’s look of confusion only deepens. 

“I… I started following you because you’re an Avenger. I don’t know if that’s why I’m following you anymore. You’re… different, for a superhero. Human,” James admits. It’s a little terrifying, Clint has to admit, being known like that by someone who doesn’t know him at all. The most human Avenger. 

“Yeah, I guess I am. Is anyone following you?” he asks next, inclining his head. He’ll protect Barnes if he has to, take him in from the cold as best as he can, but he’d like to know what he needs to look out for. James shakes his head. 

“I don’t think so. Can I… stay a while?” James asks in return, shifting eyes looking approximately two inches past Clint’s face. Clint gives him the barest bit of a smile; it reminds him of Nat when she first came home. 

“I don’t have a guest room, and the couch is kinda fucked,” Clint says, jerking his chin to gesture at the couch that is still in two halves after it’s brief contact with the tracksuit mafia that likes to throw Clint at things. That incident, at least, had made him take Tony up on the upgraded security for the building. James is looking at the wood grain of the table as if it’s the most interesting thing in the world. 

“I’ll be out before nightfall, then,” he says, the inside of his lip pulling back where he’s probably biting at it. Clint shakes his head. 

“If you don’t mind, you can share with me, James. It’s a big bed,” he offers, dipping his head to look at James on a more even level. He has to be at least six inches taller than James standing, and while that usually gets better sitting, it doesn’t feel that much different. James head jerks up. 

“You would be okay with that? With… me?” he asks. His eyes are huge, deep blue bambi eyes, and Clint nods. He doesn’t know the last time he shared a bed with someone, the last time he went an entire night without nightmares, but he’ll share a bed with James. James, who looks so hollow that he doesn’t know how to hold water anymore, James who looks like no one has made any concessions for him in years. 


	2. slow hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter two fills:   
Clint Barton Bingo I4: Bed-sharing.

They’ve been sharing a bed for the better part of three weeks, so it’s no surprise when Clint wakes up with a metal arm over his stomach. Despite the fact that they have a significant height difference that goes dramatically in Clint’s favor, James is usually the big spoon if he wakes up to the two of them cuddled together, which has been nearly every morning for the past week. He doesn’t know what’s woken him up today; it wasn’t Lucky, who is likely downstairs in one of the many plush beds that Kate has procured for him, nor was it any alarm. It’s not like he and James have a lot in the game of actual responsibilities. 

He bought a new couch a week after James moved in, but they still sleep slotted together like the bed is a cutlery drawer. When he thinks about that, he knows what woke him up - the rocking of hips against his backside, the soft grip of James’s flesh hand on Clint’s hip that’s pressed into the mattress, the puff of breath on the back of his neck. The breathing sounds like Barnes is still asleep, but there’s significant evidence that certain parts of him are wide awake. 

Certain evidence that is pressing directly against the swell of Clint’s ass. 

“James,” he says quietly, making sure that his voice doesn’t crack apart even as the grip tightens on his shoulder, erotic in a way that Clint never thought a thumb pressing on the back of one of his arrow scars would be. He feels James jolt awake, feels the absence of movement, and turns automatically. He knows that the apologies are about to start, knows that James will withdraw within himself like the first time they woke up like this, and Clint can’t have that. He’s seen the way that James’s eyes linger on him, felt the way that the two of them work, and he won’t lose that to insecurities that he can help with. 

“Clint, I -” James starts, but Clint cuts him off with taking James’s wrists in his hands, pressing them against the sheets. Startled, James allows it even as he could throw Clint clear across the room if he really wanted, and a frisson goes down Clint’s spine at the idea of the kind of power James is allowing him to have right now. 

“We’re okay,” Clint whispers, pressing a kiss to James’s lips shortly. The first kiss is brief, careful, controlled, because on the small, infinitesimal chance that Clint was wrong, he would like for the two of them to be able to recover from this. As soon as he pulls back, James surges forward, trying to recapture Clint’s lips and whining when Clint stays a distance away. James still doesn’t try to lift his wrists. 

_ “Please,”  _ James says, small like he’s ashamed, but clear all the same. Clint presses his metal wrist into the mattress a little harder before letting it go, cupping James’s jaw. 

“Hey, we’re okay, aren’t we? We’re okay,” Clint assures again, leaning down to kiss James. He moves his other hand off of James’s other wrist to hold himself above the other man, focussing himself into how James kisses like a drowning man scrambling for air, like Clint is the one chance he has at survival. James still doesn’t lift his hands from the mattress, so pretty and so ready to listen to the wordless instruction that Clint has given him, and Clint kisses him again for the ease of him. 

“Clint, I. Can I please touch? Please let me touch you,” James says, borderline begging when Clint pulls away again, and Clint just nods. He’s pleased with the way that James’s hands immediately make their way beneath the shirt that Clint wears to bed, raising it a little before looking at Clint for permission. Clint nods again and James pulls it off of him, fingers tracing scars as soon as they’re unobstructed. 

“Shirt or shirt off, Jay?” Clint asks at a whisper, pressing a kiss against James’s jaw in the meantime. James gasps and tilts his head up, allowing Clint more access to give the space marks that will fade in minutes. He’ll have to try some time to make them last for longer. He pulls back for James to answer the question. 

“Um. On, I think. Can we… take it slower?” James requests, his fingers bunching in the bottom hem of his own shirt, nervous eyes flicking between Clint’s. The archer leans down, a quick kiss pressed to James’s nose. 

“We can take this as slow as you want, James. We don’t have to do anything tonight,” Clint assures, though that doesn’t seem to be what James wants either, based off of his reaction. As Clint tries to roll to settle back neck to James, the grip of two strong hands on his hips stops him. James looks like he’s caught somewhere between attempting at wicked temptation and having a minor breakdown. 

“I want to do  _ something  _ tonight, just. Not  _ everything,”  _ James admits, his fingers trailing over the exposed skin above the waistband of Clint’s sweatpants. Clint grins down at the other man, his hand catching one of James’s to rub his thumb across the flat of his palm. He thinks he might know what that means. 

“You wanna make out like dirty teenagers until I make you cum in your pants?” Clint offers, mostly wording it like that to see the way that James blanches. James has a dirty mouth of his own, Clint has heard it when he’s watching a baseball game in the high noon light of Clint’s dirty living room, but he still goes rapidly between pale white and bright red whenever lascivious comments are made in his direction - well, only by Clint. He knows that if  _ he,  _ an unenhanced mostly deaf guy, heard the young women on the stairwell whispering about James’s arms, that James must have, but… Clint kisses him when James nods, wordless, with the rusty shade of a blush still coloring his face. 

He cradles James’s face in his palm, his other hand still holding James’s softly as he crawls between the other man’s knees. It’s reassuring, in a way, to feel that James is still just as hard as he is. The hand on James’s face slips into his hair, pulling lightly in a way that makes James  _ whine  _ against his mouth, and even louder when he does it again, harder. Clint keeps himself at a rule of only doing it some, though, because James doesn’t want this to be anything more than making out. Well, Clint can do that. He can do that pretty fucking well, if he can say so himself. 

“So pretty, under me, so pretty, James,” he mutters against James’s mouth, pulling away for a second to bite at the edge of James’s jaw. He doesn’t know which part makes James shake apart beneath him, but he makes a note to try both individually in the future. He needs to make it plenty damn clear he wants more of this in the future. 

“Want you in my bed forever, Jay, wanna keep you, wanna hold you, wanna keep the nightmares away,” he says against James’s throat, bruising bites under laden with wet kisses and quick licks. James clings onto him, hand digging into his waist in a way that will definitely leave bruises while his other hand holds Clint’s delicately, like he’s so afraid to use any of his strength that he’s barely holding on at all. Clint squeezes his hand. 

“We’re okay,” James whispers, catching Clint’s mouth with his own and pulling him in, bruising fingers leaving Clint’s waist and wrapping around his shoulder. The pressing of the scar is getting him again, and he carefully removes his hand from where he’s holding James’s to be able to hold himself up. He bites into James’s mouth in a way that’s half vicious and half careful, stormy and sweet, everything that he feels. James has been warming his bed for nearly a month, has been a staple of his everyday life for nearly a month, and Clint wants to keep him, wants him forever. He doesn’t know that he’s ever wanted someone this badly. 

He rocks his hips down, grinding into James, and feels more than he hears his partner gasp against his mouth. He continues without relent, grinding harder through their layers of boxers and sweatpants and even laying his chest heavily down against the fabric of James’s t-shirt. James had told him once, in the middle of the night, that sometimes the weight of him was reassuring in knowing that he wasn’t alone, wasn’t still HYDRA, was okay. Now, Clint uses his larger body to press against as much of James as possible, leaving his mark in whatever ways he can. 

_ “Clint,” _ James gasps, wet spot blossoming between them as James rides out an orgasm that makes him look so beautiful that Clint can barely handle it. It’s the metal hand that gets him, the fingertips against his shoulder scar, the broken expression that James makes when he finally lets himself go, and Clint follows him over that edge. 

“Stay,” Clint says when he’s collapsed against James, resting on the other man’s chest despite the fact that he knows that they’ll need a shower after this. James wraps his arms around Clint’s shoulders, pulling him in closer. 

“I will.” 


End file.
